Blackmail Earth

The Morning Show's star meteorologist, Jenna Withers, reports on the blistering conditions of a nationwide drought every day. But nothing this alluring young woman has ever experienced can prepare her for the terrifying intersection of extreme weather and extreme politics.

After Jenna receives a controversial appointment to a special White House task force on geoengineering, she learns about a lot more than the President's desire to use technology to address global warming. Through old contacts, Jenna hears that Muslim extremists in the Maldives have begun to publicly blame the West for the rising seas that imperil the tiny Pacific island nation. They are planning a suicide bombing that could lead to a sudden and disastrous cooling of the planet.

Rick Birk, an aging, alcoholic colleague of Jenna's, is dispatched to report on the turmoil in the Maldives. To his--and everyone else's--shock, he becomes a central - and bizarre - figure in the unfolding panic.

News of the Islamist threat sets off an even more horrifying plan in North Korea. The Supreme Leader, desperate for aid, threatens to hold the world hostage with his own, disaster-creating brand of geoengineering, one that takes aim at the skies.

Those escalating international tensions are set against the grisly murder of an intriguing Pagan woman in rural New York, Jenna Withers's budding romance with an organic dairy farmer, and a fiercely contested presidential campaign.

This swiftly paced tale takes Jenna from the Oval Office to the sandy shores of the Indian Ocean, from the sophisticated set of The Morning Show to her new boyfriend's dusty dairy farm. Filled with fascinating and unusual characters, and told from multiple and deeply moving points of view, Blackmail Earth culminates in a furious battle raging in the heart of Manhattan.